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Last Thursday, considerable media attention was given to the leaking of a report, to be published in Foreign Affairs by Selig Harrison, that claimed the U.S. was exaggerating the nuclear capability of North Korea. In today's Defense & Foreign Affairs, Gregory R. Copley, Editor, Global Information System, claims that Harrison's conclusion is incorrect and that if the Bush Administration has misstated North Korea's nuclear capabilities, the error has been to substantially understate the progress of the regime's nuclear programs.

Harrison claimed that the Bush Administration had presented a worst-case scenario as a certainty and distorted its intelligence to exaggerate the danger that Pyongyang is secretly making uranium-based nuclear weapons. Harrison also stated that there was no evidence to support the CIA's claim in 2002 that the DPRK had acquired large quantities of fissile materials.

GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs points to the exercises the DPRK ran in September 2004 to test its national command authority capabilities and claims they demonstrate that the regime has more nuclear weapons than the minimum required for a first-strike capability. The exercises showed that the DPRK was preparing for an ongoing nuclear conflict by testing its national-level command and control system under operational conditions.

In previous operations, the DPRK's approach was to test a launch that would be an absolute first-strike, using all available systems at the initiation of a conflict. Such an exercise only requires a coordinated launch order. Now, the command and control being exercised involves dispersed elements of strategic missile battalions, each battalion equipped with 12 mobile launchers, and each launcher supported by a reload vehicle with two additional No-Dong missiles. This exercise showed that the DPRK was preparing for a second-strike and follow-on strike operations, and had the capability of carry out a coordinated and extended operation from random launch sites. The evidence of irregular activity was noted at 10 bases, each of which could support launches from nearby positions, thereby evading preemptive enemy destruction of the bases and thwarting the prevention of the launch.

By GIS estimates, the DPRK now probably has as many as 18 deployed or deployable warhead for its No-Dong strategic missiles and its Taepo-Dong longer-range series of ballistic missiles. This means that the DPRK has at least one fully-operational, nuclear equipped No-Dong battalion ready for operations against South Korea and Japan, and at least half a battalion of nuclear equipped Taepo-Dong missiles that can reach U.S. targets in Guam, Hawaii and Alaska.

Labels: Defense and Foreign Affairs Daily, DPRK, No-Dong missiles, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Pyongyang

Information leaking out of North Korea in recent days portrays the nation in a state of siege, and its leader, Kim Jong-il, all but vanished from public view.

"The loss of this woman was a blow, but John Kerry's loss in the U.S. election was a harder one. These are now very worried men."

In a report filed from Beijing in the Sunday Times over the weekend, Michael Sheridan reports that Kim's seclusion followed the death, from cancer, of Koh Young-hee, his favorite consort and mother to his heir apparent.

One recent indication of Kim's official absence was the fact that he did not even sign North Korea's official message of condolence to the Palestinians, following the death last week of Yasser Arafat. That duty was left to Kim Yong-nam, head of the Supreme People's Assembly

Diplomats in Pyongyang have noted that some of the North Korean members of their embassy staff have been reassigned, and those remaining have become even more uneasy than is the norm about discussing current affairs. Tighter restrictions have been imposed on the movements of foreigners, and the secret police have assumed control of the mobile phone service.

Some of Sheridan's sources see the security clampdown as caused by the outcome of the U.S. election. The DPRK regime is said to view the victory of George W. Bush with alarm, inasmuch as they see the re-elected administration as determined to break their will and disarm them of nuclear weapons.

"The loss of this woman was a blow," a foreign diplomat is quoted as saying, "but John Kerry's loss in the U.S. election was a harder one. These are now very worried men."

Today's edition of Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily reports that Russian political and intelligence sources have informed Global Information System about the removal, in just the past few days, of large portraits of Kim Jong-Il from key public areas. Their sources did not attribute the changes in security procedures to the defeat of John Kerry, or to the death of Kohn Young-Hee, but instead believed the clampdown to be the result of an acute leadership crisis.

Global Information System concludes that the death or removal of Kim Jong-Il could have a profound effect along several geopolitical fronts. First, a change in leadership could disrupt the strategic alliance between the DPRK and Iran, an alliance that has resulted in both states pursuing an aggressive game of brinksmanship by the rapid development of their respective nuclear programs. Second, GIS sees a potential impact on the support by the DPRK, through their facilities in Myanmar, for South Asian terrorist and insurgency movements. "Of principal concern in this regard," claims the special report, "would be the impact such a change would have on support for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), in Sri Lanka, as well as on DPRK support for some non-Muslim Indian separatists." Finally, a regime change would have a probable impact on North Korea's weapons sales to Syria, Sudan, Libya and others.

Labels: Defense and Foreign Affairs Daily, DPRK, Kim Jong-il, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, North Korea, Pyongyang, Sri Lanka